/Concept consortio: BioShock 2, Little King Story, and Noby Noby Boy

I love concept art — it’s a great sneak peek into the game development process and it almost always looks cool. Even if the game is dogshit, I can guarantee that there was at least something about its seminal concept that was interesting or compelling or, at the very least, pretty.

With that in mind, feast your eyes on some art from games that I’m not even particularly jazzed about:

While I loved the original BioShock (even if was only a prettier System Shock 2, hurf hurf), I’m only cautiously optimistic about its followup. As someone who expects a lot from the games industry, it’s kind of disheartening to see such a great and self-reliant game fall into an industry-standard serialization process. Especially since lead designer Ken Levine isn’t involved in the project.

I know, I know — games are expensive to make and we only have ourselves to blame if the industry isn’t willing to take big risks. But still.

I love the Katamari series, but Takahashi’s Noby Noby Boy left me a little cold. I enjoy the game’s premise in theory — players from all over the world implicitly working together to stretch Noby Noby GIRL to new planets — as well as Takahashi’s generally off-kilter design philosophy.

However, Noby‘s central mechanic (no matter how elegantly it matches the premise) doesn’t keep me engaged. Perhaps I’m more old-fashioned than I care to accept, but I like having a goal, even one that’s purely narrative.

It’s not concept art per se, but it is some of Takahashi’s doodles, from a recent (and certainly interesting) interview with Gamasutra.